Just in the last few weeks, we’ve been covering the rise and fall of Element Quest, an indie MapleStory-esque 2-D MMO that had rolled out on Steam but hadn’t managed to attract an audience or funding significant enough to maintain it. At the time it was pulled off Steam, studio MuscleBird Games said that it might return to service at some point with an improved experience and different name. I didn’t imagine it would happen at all, let alone almost immediately, given that the studio had said it had lost a key developer and was “never close to return-on-investment,” but here we are. Today the team announced a rerelease called Sunset World Online that’ll be launching on Steam in just two weeks, under a new Steam page that will start with a clean slate for reviews as well.
Longtime MMO vets probably just made a face, as “sunset” is the term traditionally used for games that close down. Then again, maybe it’s appropriate here since it’s back from the dead.
In any case, the devs say the new game “aims to pick up where Element Quest […] stopped,” without what it characterized as “latency and localization issues.” The look of the game is the same, although this version apparently includes an improved starting experience, a level cap of 26, more spells, more quests, more locations, quality-of-life and interface improvements, with early access planned for PC, Mac, and Android. It seems like an awful lot to have added to the game in just a few weeks.
“Sunset World Online is a game heavily inspired by the Old-School Maplestory experience. It aims to one day, hopefully, become its successor and bring in the already 3rd-person-saturated MMO world something new and refreshing. Since this is an indie studio, it would naturally take the risk of experimenting with innovative features. With this new release, the developers in-charge have changed their name from XPloria & Musclebird to just Musclebird. They now aim to focus on innovative quality features which are passion-driven instead of trying to appease and reach the widest & most varied audience while focusing on the already enthusiastic players and type of audience this game has.”
Early access on PC is slated for March 1st; the Steam page says the game has over six hours of solo play and that trading, guilds, and PvP are being worked on. The game’s monetization was one of its strong points before; the devs say they’ll continue with a free-to-play, anti-pay-to-win model, again in spite of the fact that they believed their business model for Element Quest made user acquisition difficult.
